Small island airline starts charging fliers by weight

Apr. 3, 2013
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An image of a Samoa Air aircraft. / Courtesy of Samoa Air

by Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY

by Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY

It's finally happened: A small island-hopping airline says it has begun charging passengers by weight.

The carrier is tiny Samoa Air, which flies turboprop flights within the Samoan islands. And that pricing scheme will soon be in effect on short-hop international flights to the U.S. territory of American Samoa.

As for the carrier's weight-based pay scheme, the BBC reports "passengers pay a fixed price per kilogram, which varies depending on the route length."

Samoa Air has used the weight-based pay structure on domestic flights since November. But, the carrier said Wednesday it will start pricing its first international flights based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight, each kilogram (2.2 pounds) costs 93 cents to $1.06.

That means the average American man weighing 195 pounds with a 35-pound bag would pay $97 to go one-way between Apia, Samoa, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Competitors typically charge $130 to $140 round-trip for similar routes.

Samoa Air has been using the pricing model since November, but in January the U.S. Department of Transportation approved the airline's first international route, which will operate between American Samoa and Samoa.

Samoa Air CEO Chris Langton told The Associated Press on Tuesday that "planes are run by weight and not by seat, and travelers should be educated on this important issue. The plane can only carry a certain amount of weight and that weight needs to be paid. There is no other way."

"People who have been most pleasantly surprised are families, because we don't charge on the seat requirement even though a child is required to have a seat, we just weigh them," Langton adds to Australia's ABC News radio.

"So a family of maybe two adults and a couple of mid-sized kids and younger children can travel at considerably less than what they were being charged before," he adds, according to Australia Network News.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that "under the new system, Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website. ... Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online."

Islands in the Pacific have the highest rates of obesity in the world. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, 86 percent of Samoans are overweight, the fourth worst among all nations. Only Samoa's Pacific neighbors Nauru, the Cook Islands and Tonga rank worse.

On that note, CEO Langton says he hopes his airline's policy "has raised the awareness of weight" in Samoa.